A Strange Education
by stretch the faunlet
Summary: Fate always worked in the strangest of ways. ZaTR, SaTnnR, ZaDF and past RaMyR. Drabble series.


**A Strange Education**

_The trouble is, _

_nothing looks the same._

_The trouble is, _

_I don't think it ever will…_

_"A Strange Education", The Cinematics_

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><p><strong>Part One:<strong>

**Zim & Tak**

He stared out the window, watching his two smeets playing outside in the front yard. His son and daughter were five-irken-months-old, the equivalent of a four-year-old human child in mind and size-wise, though really, they were both only five in Earth-years. He could hear their laughing and giggling as Gir and Mimi chased after the two, playfully. They were all clad in their disguises, and it appeared to the human neighbors as just two little kids playing with their cat and dog...

All was normal.

And Zim, as he kept an eye on his two smeets and two SIR-units, reflected on his life. Never he expected to be an Irken with these responsibilities; Married now and a father of two curious little ones. Times like this, alone and standing at the window now, watching his smeets play, he'd reflect, look back on how his life turned out.

Exile hadn't been all fun-and-games, but after becoming friends with the Dib-human and his scary sister Gaz in High Skool, and later on having Tak come back a year later during their sophomore year, and finding those feelings for each other through his denial of love and her fear of betrayal, they all formed, the four of them, and with Skoodge and Tenn who had been with them in High Skool before leaving to start their own life together, all six of them had formed a bond, unbreakable and lasting.

But now, career goals had pulled Dib and Gaz away, marriage had pulled Skoodge and Tenn back to Planet Zeynxia, and now family life pulled Zim and Tak to reality; it was just Zim and his wife, their two smeets and two SIR-units.

And he was okay with that.

Dib and Gaz had said their goodbyes before leaving for college. Adults they were now, venturing off into the human world in search of their careers and dreams. And Skoodge and Tenn; they called from time to time, married now and with a little one of their own, far away their were but still kept in touch.

Everyone was doing their own thing.

The earth sun was high in the sky; a typical day in the cul-de-sac where their base had stayed for years.

Secretly, he couldn't see his life differently. It was this way, meant to be.

From behind, a pair of arms wrapped themselves around his waist, and Tak laid her head on his shoulder, her eyes focusing too, on their smeets and SIRs.

_Reach out and touch me…_

She smiled as Zim rested his hands over her arms. "Was it all worth it?"

Zim didn't understand. "What do you mean?" he asked, confused.

"Exile," she explained. "If none of that ever happened, you and me, and them-" she motioned towards their smeets, "wouldn't exist. Was it worth it?"

And he wondered then, briefly. What was more important? His old life as a hardened Invader, alone in a silent agony of an unloved heart that he denied about for years, or this: a loving wife, two precious smeets of their own, and their one responsible SIR-unit Mimi and their insane little SIR-unit they honestly couldn't live without, Gir?

A life with pride but without love? Or a life with the love he had yearned for when the truth, 'Exile' and 'never an invader' sank in? When he had found what he had really wanted within Tak, when she came back, when fate had, unknowingly to them both, sent her back, to him?

A place to call home and a family of his own.

After a long moment, he answered truthfully, "It was defiantly worth it."

Fate always worked in the strangest of ways. 

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><p><strong>AN: A little Drabble series focusing on the outcome of fate that impacted the lives of Zim and Tak, Dib, Gaz, Skoodge and Tenn, and also Tallest Red. Zim, now married with kids, Dib and Gaz, now both adults, Skoodge and Tenn, also now married with a kid and living on another planet, and Tallest Red and his life without Miyuki, who we all know died sadly. :'( **

**Just basically a reflection Drabble series that fits into the plot of my upcoming large, five-part trilogy called, "Where is my mind?" It won't be out for a while, but I have it all planned out. :D**


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